Regretfully, I feel compelled to write this, and I will do my best to speak as truthfully as possible.
I worked with Marc for almost 7 years at a large crypto exchange, specifically on a data visualization team. He was a great manager...until he wasn't—the day I lost a promotion to another colleague, Jay Schwartz.
It came as such a shock to me: I had "exceeded expectations" on all of my bi-annual reviews, I helped shape the high standards, high output, and high trust culture of our team, I was one of the first team members hired on the team, I helped upskill those with less experience, I had a forward vision for tooling, data visualization, and overall direction of our work, I could pair with anyone and yield great results, I produced minimal bugs, fixed bugs, and could communicate effectively, etc.
And perhaps most detrimentally, I was "lead" on an important project that would sync our entire org into our parent org—call it Project Sync.
And this is the crucial part. As the day came where a re-org meant we lost Marc to a higher rung, that also meant I got undermined on the Sync project by way of having Jay Schwartz as a direct manager, a person unwilling to lift a finger on the project. He was "for it" in a feigned manner, but had little to no actual code input on it. Because we had parallel mandates of adding new features and furthering Project Sync, he had, for the most part, stuck to new features. Very important, but not to the neglect of Project Sync, which served as a lynchpin or bridge into a new world. Here, even new features need to meld with Sync.
And so we were stuck with "dead weight" that was supposed to be promoting the cause and instead would spinelessly hide behind his bosses up the chain. Not to mention not help the team in any way besides "babysitting"—writing grammatically correct reviews and hosting meetings where he does nothing (these items carried more weight in Marc's grading system than actually delivering on said Project).
After the decision, surprise surprise, ~two years later the 120+ person org was dissolved by our parent company. Marc and Jay were demoted, and the stand-in Head of Product personally asked me what happened with Project Sync.
These two men, Marc and Jay, showed some similarities in conduct: the ability to maintain the status quo (to get a check/vest/not rock the boat), parasitize not multiply the talent of others, and dodge public culpability, all at the expense of the team. By definition, these men are not leaders in the proper sense. Please be warned.
Sincerely, Aaron Moradi
PS If you'd like more clarity or details, I'd be happy to provide. It's possible even Artur Sapek could provide additional perspective on it. Thanks.
Ephesians 4:28 Let him that stole steal no more